by Tom Holt
“You’re Mark Twain,” said a male Dirter.
“Yes,” Twain confirmed. It was hard to talk through the smile. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Your résumé …” A female Dirter. “You, um, seem to have done a lot in a short time.”
“I like to keep busy.”
“Quite.” The female Dirter was frowning at a data pad on the table in front of her. “Masters degree at Reykjavik Institute of Technology; then three years’ postgraduate research into waveform theory at Spitzbergen; two years as a senior systems analyst at PaySoft; two years as a freelance software designer; three years as Visiting Fellow of Computer Science at Minsk. Tell me, Mr Twain, how are you on basic arithmetic?”
“Outstanding,” Twain replied. “Why?”
“You may care to add up the numbers,” the female said. “If you really did all those things, you’d have to be twenty-nine at least. Your date of birth suggests you’re twenty-eight. Care to explain?”
He could, actually. There was a tiny glitch in one of his basic calculating tools, and sometimes it made the silliest mistakes. Fortunately, as a self-aware adaptive weapons-grade artificial intelligence, he was fitted with lying protocols. “Simple,” he said, taking care not to let the smile droop. “The three years at Minsk were concurrent with the last year at PaySoft and the two years freelancing. Three cheers for our wonderful planetary transit systems, is what I say.”
The female gave him an odd look, but he reckoned he’d got away with it. Another male, who’d been staring at him with evident fascination ever since he came into the room, made a coughing noise and said, “Mr Twain.”
“Yup?”
“What…?” Something was disrupting the Dirter’s concentration. Could it be that he had a tune running through his head too? “What uniquely special contribution do you believe you could bring to the Credit Mayonnais?”
Ah. As perfect a cue as he could have asked for. He reached across the table, took hold of the laptop belonging to the other female. “May I? Thanks. This won’t take a second.”
He pretended to type. Really, he was just downloading through the universal interfaces built into his fingertips. “Have a look at that,” he said, and turned the laptop round so the Dirters could see the screen.
They looked at it. A second later, he knew they were hooked.
“It’s a data search-and-correlate routine,” he said. “I thought of it just now, in the waiting room, but silly me, I didn’t have anything to write it down on.”
A Dirter male lifted his head. He’d gone a sort of dirty-snow colour, and his eyes were huge. “You thought of it just now,” he repeated.
“That’s right.” Another lie. It was old, very old; a thousand years old, at least. Ostar children learned it in pre-school, round about the same time as they learned to read The bug dug in the rug. So simple, in fact, that Dirters might be expected to understand it, while at the same time being totally blown away by their first glimpse of real computing.
A modest shrug was called for, he felt. “Think you’ll find it’s about, what, 2,000 per cent quicker and 9,000 per cent more efficient than what you’re using now.” He paused. All the faces were staring at him, fixated. Probably, he decided, it’d be all right if I stopped smiling now. “You can have it,” he said. “Free gift. Provided I get the job.”
Ti-tum tum.
Oh no, he thought, not now, not when it’s practically in the can and hermetically sealed. He switched to emergency auxiliary anti-music resource A3, a cunning little modification which disrupted his ability to process sequences of more than three connected intervals. It helped, a bit. Now it was just ti-tum.
“You mean you’ll assign us the rights if we…?” Annoying habit Dirters had of rephrasing the last thing he’d said and firing it back as a question.
“Yes,” he said, as pleasantly as he could. Ti-tum, he managed not to add.
“That’s a very generous offer,” the first female said warily. “However, it’s not our policy to sell jobs to the highest bidder. Nonetheless—”
“Tum.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry,” Twain snapped. “Just humming.”
“Humming?”
“It’s the buzz,” he said desperately. “I got rhythm. Tumt.”
A male Dirter had been following the progression of the program on the screen with his fingertip. “You’re sure this is all your own unaided work?”
“Course.”
“It’s remarkable. It’s — well, it’s a whole new direction in programming.”
Time to switch the smile back on. “Oh, I come up with stuff like that all the time, tum,” he said. Under the table, his left foot was dabbing at the floor, and the fingers of his right hand were just starting to quiver. He had to get out of there before the urge to climb on the table and dance became too much to repress. “Anyway, that’s what I do. And when you come down to it, that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Well?”
The Dirters were looking at each other. They weren’t, as far as he was aware, a telepathic species, but these five seemed to have the knack of communicating without words. Another important fact they’d managed to conceal? He made a note to check all available data resources, as soon as he got this goddamn tune out of his head.
“I think we’re all in agreement,” said the Dirter who’d spoken first. “Mr Twain, welcome to the Credit Mayonnais. We think—” The Dirter caught sight of Twain’s smile, winced and looked away. “We think you’ll make a terrific addition to our IT team. When can you start?”
“Now.”
The Dirter nodded. Maybe it wasn’t the answer he’d have most liked to hear. “Now, about your remuneration package—”
Twain waved a hand. No time for extraneous garbage like this. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, in a strained voice. “Don’t want paying. Private means. Happy to do the job just for the sheer heck of it. Only complicate-ate-ate my tax position if you paid me-ee-e. Boop-be-doop.”
Judging by their reaction, he’d made another etiquette gaffe. Regrettable; but with two thirds of his buffers now overflowing with utterly meaningless mathematical calculations posited on the progression tum tumpty tumpty turn tum, it was a miracle he still had enough operating capacity for basic motor functions. “Look, have I got the job or not? Only I need to go somewhere now. Right now.”
A male Dirter who hadn’t said anything yet said, “You’ve got the job. Report to the ninth floor, room 17739745, 0900 tomorrow. And it’s just down the corridor,” he added, as Twain shot to his feet and sprinted for the door. “Second on the right.”
The room referred to proved to be a waste-extraction facility, which (in a sense) was just what he needed. Wondering how the Dirter could’ve known that, he dropped down on the curiously shaped seat, ran every debugging program he had and deactivated himself. An hour later, he came back on. No tums. Joy.
When he opened the door, he saw the Dirter who’d given him the wonderfully timely advice. The Dirter grinned at him.
“Like they say,” the Dirter said. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
Twain had no idea what he meant by that. There were, he had to acknowledge, gaps in his cultural database which left him at a disadvantage. Fortunately, he knew that awkwardnesses of that kind could easily be smoothed over with a big, friendly smile. Just as well he’d taken the trouble to perfect his smiling techniques. He beamed at the Dirter, who gave him a steady, appraising sort of look, then went away again.
The five members of the interview panel met up again in the elevator going down. For a dozen or so floors, nobody spoke. Then one of the women said, “The huge staring eyes.”
The others tended to agree. “The humming,” said one.
“The smile,” said another.
They looked at each other. There are some things nobody can ever bring themselves to say with words: guilty, shameful things, expressions of humanity’s inner core of unenlightened self-interest.
The nearest
translation would be something like “On the other hand.”
“Typical programmer, in fact,” said one of them. He had the grace to decorate the statement with a rather shrill, nervous laugh.
“Let’s face it,” said another. “If he was normal—”
“Goes with the territory,” said a third.
“Yup, he’s a programmer all right,” said the younger of the two women. “Reminds me of a guy I used to—” She remembered who she was talking to and fell silent.
“Anyway, that’s that sorted,” one of them said briskly. “Anyone else fancy a drink?”
10
Novosibirsk
The two men who’d shot George Stetchkin and who weren’t werewolves because werewolves don’t exist closed the door of their hotel room, wedged a chair under the handle and sat down, one on the bed, the other on the floor. The man on the floor, who’d done the actual shooting, loosened his tie, drew the gun from the inside pocket of his jacket, fiddled with a catch on the back, slid across a panel and pulled out a small black plastic box, which he stared at for a moment, then handed to his friend, who stared at it some more.
“I hate this planet,” said the man on the bed.
“Me too,” said the man on the floor.
The man on the bed turned the box over in his fingers, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. “The smell,” he said.
“Revolting,” said the man on the floor.
“The carbon dioxide.”
“Unbelievable.”
“The blue sky.”
The man on the floor shrugged. “Actually, I don’t mind that,” he said.
“Really?” The man on the bed turned to look at him.
“It’s OK,” the man on the floor said. “It’s like being underwater all the time.”
“Exactly.” The man on the bed looked away, back at the black plastic box. “And the cold,” he said.
“Too right.” The man on the floor shivered. “I haven’t been warm since we got here.”
The man on the bed leaned over and tried to reach the thermostat on the wall, but his arm wasn’t long enough. He seemed mildly surprised by that. “And these bodies,” he said.
“You know, I think that’s the worst thing,” the man on the floor said sadly. “Funny thing is, when I was a kid, I always rather fancied being a primate.”
The man on the bed looked at him. “That’s weird,” he said.
“Well, yes,” the other man agreed. “But I thought, being a primate, two square meals a day, your own basket, people throwing sticks for you to chase after, not having to go to school—” He shrugged. “I take it all back,” he said. “Being a primate sucks.”
The man on the bed yawned. “You’ve got to feel sorry for them, really,” he said.
“Oh? Why?”
“Well…” He thought for a while. “When you think what they’ve had to put up with—”
“Being primates, you mean?”
“They’ve actually achieved quite a lot,” the man on the bed said. “All things considered. What I’m saying is, they haven’t done too badly.”
“For primates.”
“Quite.”
“I guess.” The man on the bed stretched out his legs and rubbed his knees. “And at least they don’t eat each other any more. Still,” he said firmly, “the sooner we can wrap this up and get home, the happier I’ll be. Using that thing…” He waved a hand in the general direction of the toilet door. “When we get back, I’m having that part of my brain scrubbed. Not something I want to carry about in my mind for the rest of my life.”
“Could’ve been worse. We could’ve been females.”
“Don’t even say that,” the man on the floor said. “Now there’s something that really doesn’t bear thinking about.” He took a scrap of rag from his pocket, gave the gun a desultory polish and slipped it back in his pocket. “So,” he said, “why did you join the programme?”
“Me? Oh, the travel. I always wanted to, you know, explore strange new worlds, investigate alien cultures, all that. You?”
The man on the floor nodded. “Me too. If there’s one thing I can’t be doing with, it’s a blinkered, parochial mindset.” He frowned, then sniffed. “Just a pity I had to end up here, is all. I mean, there must be nice planets, somewhere.”
“Bound to be.”
“Just not this one.”
The man on the bed nodded sadly. “Ah well,” he said. “Sooner we get the job done, sooner we can go home. You ready?”
The man on the floor patted the pocket where the gun was. “As I’ll ever be.”
The man on the bed nodded and swung his legs off the bed, planting his feet firmly on the floor. He held the plastic box rock-steady in his right hand and tapped a couple of hidden buttons with the nail of his left index finger. A small screen, no more than a centimetre square, glowed blue on the side of the box. He tapped it a few times, and a menu came up: tiny characters, like a sample of bacteria seen through a microscope, wiggling. He tapped the screen again, then bent forward and laid the box gently on the floor.
“You got the gun handy?” he asked. “You know, just in case.”
The man on the floor nodded. A thin beam of red light shot out of one corner of the box, slowly widened, then seemed to blossom, like a flower unfolding its petals. The man on the floor was scratching his ear; he was using his left foot. The blossom of light coagulated into a definite shape, the shape of a human being; gradually it thickened, as though matter was a liquid, poured in from the top, through the left ear. “Here we go,” muttered the man on the bed as the human shape acquired mass and density, its weight now resting on its own two feet. The screen on the back of the box went blank; the human form, unmistakably a man, staggered and fell over.
“They do that,” explained the man on the bed. He leaned forward, smiled and said, “Greetings.”
The newcomer had landed face-down. Gradually, as though doing a slow-motion press-up, he levered himself off the carpet and looked round.
“Greetings,” the man on the bed repeated. “George Stetchkin?” George swung his head to look at him, then groaned sadly and flopped back on his face. The man on the bed sighed. “Alcohol poisoning,” he said. “Build-up of residual toxins in the bloodstream. The refocusing procedure—”
George rolled over on to his side and rubbed his eyes. “Who the hell are you?” he said. “Hey,” he added sharply. “Did you just—?”
The man on the bed beamed at him. “Please remain calm,” he said. “Otherwise my colleague will have to shoot you again. Do you understand?”
“You bastard, you shot me.” George lifted his head and stared. “You—” He was about to say You killed me, but clearly that hadn’t been the case. “You shot me,” he repeated. “With a ray-gun.”
The man on the floor coughed gently. “A controlled inverted-field teleportation buffering device,” he said. “No permanent physical effect, although you may be experiencing severe neuralgia and mild nausea, owing to the high level of toxic hydrocarbons in your bloodstream.”
George hauled himself round and glared at the man on the floor. “A what?”
“Controlled inverted-field teleportation buffering device,” the man on the bed said. Then a thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Are you familiar with teleportation theory?”
“Yes,” George snapped, “it’s impossible. Who the hell—?”
“Actually,” the man on the bed said gently, “no. Where we come from …” he paused, and exchanged glances with his colleague, who nodded. “Where we come from, it’s everyday technology. It’s how we get about.”
George opened his mouth, then closed it again. They looked like — well, people. Ordinary. The sombre dark business suits and gleaming black shoes were a little odd, but not the sort of thing to fry a man’s brains. If asked, he’d have said they were probably Jehovah’s Witnesses. So where did they come from? Seattle? “Who are you?” he said.
“Your friends,” said the
man on the bed. “Really.”
“Trust us,” said the man on the floor. “We’re here to save your planet.”
Slovenly, disorganised, unreliable; in spite of which, George was head of security for a major bank. With an imperceptible movement of his hand, he pressed a button on the side of his watch.
“Sorry,” said the man on the bed, “we deactivated it.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Your panic button,” the man said kindly. “The teleport gun does it automatically. Likewise the homing beacon in your shoe and the recording device implanted in your belt buckle. Otherwise the electronics would garble your signal, and you’d come out all runny.” He scratched his nose with his thumbnail, then said, “We recommend you don’t try and overcome us with brute force. Obviously we’d try not to, but in this gravity we could inadvertently damage you severely if we have to restrain you.”
A few years earlier, George had been to a seminar: What to do When You’re Completely Screwed. To which the answer was: nothing. A short seminar; his favourite kind.
“The teleport gun,” the man on the floor said, “scans you, records a complete schematic, right down to the subatomic level, disassembles your molecules and stores them in a self-contained Somewhere Else field inside the confinement chamber. Then, when the time comes, it simply reverses the procedure and there you go. Instantaneous matter transfer,” he continued; “just add photonic energy. Oh, and we fixed your glaucoma.”
“I haven’t got—”
“Not any more,” the man on the floor said pleasantly. “Incipient, in your left eye. All gone now. The gun’s actually a by-product of our medical technology. It can cure most things.”
George breathed in and out, slowly, three times. “You’re not from around here,” he said.
The man on the bed smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “Don’t ask us where we’re from. Just think ‘out of town’. OK?”
“It’s because of the insurance,” the man on the floor explained. “If we tell you where we’re from, it might change your society’s perception of its place in the cosmos for ever and lead to irreversible social and cultural damage, and then we’d be liable. The premiums are murder as it is.”